Why the African Agripreneur?

My connection with agriculture begins way long before I was born.

?My parents were raised by peasant farmers in a famous East African border town. My father’s education depended on cash paid by a local cottony ginnery for their produce from their small cotton farm which they woke up at 4am every morning to tend.

?My mother’s father was prominent local cattle keeper and owner of a famous butchery in the same town but as opposed to many of his peers, he believed that girls deserved the same education opportunities because they had the same potential as boys, something rare then.

?They both believed that education was the best way for the future of their children. As luck would have it, both their children became teachers in the late seventies, hence the mantra – education is the key.

I am not so sure if it is still the key.

?Since then, my life story has been closely intertwined with agriculture, way before I chose to pursue a career in agriculture. Most vividly, a nasty accident resulting from playing with oxen while ploughing a maize farm in my childhood years almost sheared off my right foot.

?A few decades later, an unexpected collision between an airplane that was about to take off and off all things, a dog from the sidelines of a poorly kept airstrip, convinced the keenest of pilots to safely but dangerously abort the takeoff.

?Otherwise, am sure we would not be discussing about food systems here today.

?With hindsight, some of these experiences later influenced me to what was the most unlikely career choice and here we are today.

?That is how I ended here.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The African Agripreneur, a space dedicated to sharing personal insights and practical lessons of few successes, many failures from my almost two decades experience in agriculture, agribusiness and agritech in Africa.

?These stories are original, down-to-earth look into how things work on the continent as opposed to how they are portrayed to work. They will also detail the lighter, funny or shocking experiences that I personally underwent while trying to achieve my goals.

?Whether you’re a farmer, agriprenuer, agritech founder, investor, visionary food system leader & agribusiness enthusiast in Africa, this is the right newsletter for you.

In war & peace

During my unexpected career into agriculture, I have undergone different kind of experiences at and during my work, from some of the scariest – having to engage and at times visit clients in raging war zones – to the most humbling - learning to discern the common threads and major differences in peasantry life across many communities I lived and worked in across sub-Saharan Africa.

?Through the African Agriprenuer newsletter, we will be delving into details of an unlikely career so that others can hear and learn from the horse’s mouth while being careful not to not jeopardize the freedoms or privacy of others.

It will start from times yonder before I was born, to today, where I am now deeply engaged trying to solve the challenges the smallholder farmer faces through Shambapro, a social enterprise and agtech startup, and through food system transformation initiatives in collaboration with other food system leaders from across Africa.

?If am not doing those two, I might be caught canvassing especially the young but also the old people to consider making money from agriculture.

This newsletter will be short, sweet, personal, full of unique learnings and still be a fun place to be for you all every month.

But why a Newsletter?

I believe that most industry innovators, practitioners and enthusiasts especially in the early stages of their career do not have access to accurate realities and vagaries of the Africa’s agribusiness industry, just like I did not when I started.

This is because what is portrayed in the traditional media, academia, school textbooks or ‘popular’ narratives of Africa’s agribusiness industry are usually bastardized models borrowed from successes in Asia or the global north.

And for the most, it will be free for its loyal fans. To become one, please hit the subscribe button and get ready for edition number one in January 2025.

The writer is the founder and CEO of Shambapro, an agtech startup. He is also, an accomplished food system leader, a speaker and a strong advocate for African youth to identify & exploit income generation opportunities in the Africa food system